Customer Reviews

No Excuses LP

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Let's first be clear: I am not a Notre Dame, New England Patriot, or for that matter a Charlie Weis fan. However, after reading this book, you can cross off the Charlie Weis part, I am now quite an admirer of his. This book, in short order, chronicles Coach Weis'time from his own high school football and college days, through his coaching career from the high school to his current job as head coach of the Fighting Irish. Citing his high school coach as his first ideological hero, through South Carolina's Joe Morrison and the two Bills (Parcells and Belicheck), Coach Weis offers insight into each of their philosophies and motivation techniques and how he incorporated each of their styles into his own coaching. Lastly, he chronicles his first year at Notre Dame and how he approached changing the team's attitude to a winning formula as last season's record indicates.

With all that, the most interesting section of this book is the time he reflects on his special relationship with his family: his wife Maura, and children Charlie Jr. and daughter Hannah. His daughter Hannah is a "special needs" child, and his loving, caring attitude towards her and his whole family, is both inspiring and heart-warming. Add to that, his account of his obsession with his own weight, the risky surgery he chose to have performed, which almost cost him his life, and this story is one of the finest you may read.

Finally, if you need one other reason to purchase this book, the proceeds go to the Charlie Weis Foundation for Special Needs Children. Enough said, buy it, read it!!!

No Excuses details the rise of Charlie Weis from a high school football coach to a stint as an offensive coordinator and head coaching candidate in the NFL to the head coach of the storied Notre Dame football program.

Weis certainly doesn't have the resume of most prominent head football coaches in the NFL. As a Notre Dame undergrad, instead of diagramming plays and obsessing about football like so many other head coaches in his position, Weis longed for a career as a sports broadcaster. Having also gotten a degree in English, Weis found himself teaching and coaching sports in high school where he started to learn the nuances of the game. Through contacts Weis eventually wound up as an assistant coach at the University of South Carolina. While at South Carolina he did some grunt work breaking down plays for the New York Giants. Noticing his work ethic and acumen, Weis was eventually offered a job by head coach Bill Parcells. The job was low on the pecking order but it gave Weis his start in the NFL. From there, of course, he climbed through the ranks, eventually following Bill Belichick, Parcells' long time defensive coordinator, to the New England Patriots where he served as offensive coordinator.

Three Super Bowl championships later and a brush with death after gastric bypass surgery to control his weight, Weis was offered a job as head football coach at his alma mater, Notre Dame, a job he just couldn't turn down.

This book really is not about football. It's mostly about Weis's rise through the ranks and his personal work and moral ethics that are the groundwork for what he teaches players and how he tries to conduct himself in the rough and tumble world of professional and big time college football. Much of his coaching philosophy comes from his sports crazed childhood and current family life, in which he has a special needs child. He seems to have a very solid foundation for a job that requires a great deal of leadership and motivational skills.

The biggest drawback of the book is a lack of material about the biggest games Weis has been involved in as a coach and his football philosophy (the X's and O's). There's little here about the day to day activities of a coach, nor is there a chronicling of the Patriots' Super Bowl winning seasons which Weis was an integral part of. Readers looking for a book about football or the New England Patriots (or the New York Giants) will be disappointed. I know I was, a little.

There is, however, a very good chronicling of Weis' near death experience after gastric bypass surgery and how Tom Brady, the New England Patriots' quarterback, helped his wife cope with the situation. It's a rather touching story about Brady and gives insight into why he is so well liked around the league.

Overall, this is a very readable, engaging book and interesting for football fans - despite that it talks little about football specifically.

I don't know what I thought this book would be about but I was hoping for a little more Notre Dame stories. I did learn a lot about Coach Weis and have become a bigger fan of the Irish and him after reading the book. Just not enough Irish stories to really keep me into the book.

Take ajourney with Charles Weis, New Jersey born

and raised guy who happened to go down and talk

to one of the 'Fathers' in the Notre Dame Athletic

office one day back in 1975 about what HE thought

the 'Fightin' Irish' should be doing to inprove

the football team. Fast forward through the years

as Charlie Weis becomes the sports enthusiast who

moves up through the ranks and becomes a first rate

football coach who ends up going back to Notre Dame

after winning FOUR Super Bowls and becomes it's H.

Coach! Great and inspirational reading! As good as

Marv Levy's fine football book, "Where Else Would

You Rather Be?"

Coach Weis starts this short autobiography out with a funny story about his student days at Notre Dame and how he had the nerve to complain to the University president about the football team. I would say that this is a rather interesting way for the man who is now in charge of that same football team to start out his book. Right up front Charlie Weis says to us the fans that he understands what it is like to be frustrated and that we Notre Dame fans really matter to him. I like this guy!

I say that this is a short autobiography because there is so much yet to be written in the Charlie Weis story but there is still a lot of information to be found in these pages. I must admit that I had wondered how a guy who hadn't even played college football became the coach of the most storied program in the sport and by reading this book I got my answers. Charlie Weis is one hard working guy. This is not to say that he didn't get some major breaks along the way because he did and he freely acknowledges that he did. Coach Weis is proud of his work ethic and that comes across loud and clear in this book but the man doesn't have a conceited bone in his body. I like this guy!

When Coach Weis was hired at Notre Dame most Irish fans read up on him in a hurry and so we knew the basics of his sparkling pro career but in this book we get a little more of story including some things that I'm sure that he didn't really care to share but he shared them anyway and the book is all the better for it. I really do like this guy!

Best of all, we finally get a look at Coach's personal life and we learn about his wonderful wife and his special relationship with his son. We also get a glimpse of his relationship with his special needs daughter who is able to communicate very clearly when she wants her dad to go away and leave her alone. The proceeds from this book go to a foundation he has set up in the name of his daughter Hannah and it was for the love of her that he even agreed to write this book. Did I mention that I like this guy?

This book is not a deep tome on Charlie Weis' coaching philosophy or an insight into the Notre Dame program. That may well come later when he has been at South Bend for a few more years. This is simply the basic story of a man who accepts no excuses from his players or himself and who expects everyone to give their all for the good of the team. This is Charlie Weis 101 and I hope that the graduate level course won't be too long in coming.

The book has several interesting stories. Though CW doesn't mention it, he must have been a pretty smart student to get admitted to ND. I thought he said his dad was of a blue collar profession, so he must have gotten quite a bit of financial aid.

I found his story about how he quit HS coaching to take a grad assistantship at South Carolina interesting, as well as how he was to be offered the head coaching job with the Bills, if the Patroits lost the AFC championship game to the Titans. I also found his early days as coach of the Fighting Irish to be interesting. All in all, it's a story of a hard working guy who always tried to do the right thing and succeeding to get the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

This is a very refreshing story of how an outwardly ordinary person with some extraordinary insight and self-confidence goes from being a regular kid to a top level coach, and how he balances his family life with his professional life. He doesn't dish dirt or tattle, and it isn't all about Notre Dame Football. He acknowledges success and failure without bragging about his system or complaining about setbacks. He doesn't breach the privacy of others to sell his story, so details of who said what and who did what are not there, though he does give plenty of credit where it is due. It's dignified but not stuffy or superior. You just can't help but admire him, and you wish you had a boss with his sense of priorities, directness, and honesty.

It really does hook you, so make sure you have plenty of time when you first open it to read the whole thing. I bought this for my spouse for Christmas. While wrapping it, I took a little peek. Two hours later I finished it. It was just too darn interesting to put down, and I am not a big football fan. Then I kept thinking about it and had to stop myself from quoting it (to keep from spoiling the surprise). When my spouse opened it on Christmas Day; I warned him that it would suck him right in. He laughed and took a peek. Now I have a nice picture him, surrounded by holiday chaos and kids, completely oblivious while reading this book cover-to-cover.

We both agree that this is a really terrific book. Since my spouse is a big Notre Dame fan (two ND degrees and grew up in South Bend), but I am not, I'd say that this book appeals to a wide variety of people.

This book is a fast read, and I really liked it. I thought he made his points and got his story across very well, and gives some insight as to how the coaching profession works. I recommend it.

After seeing a thirty minute interview with Weis I immediately ordered this book. I thought I would get another 200 pages of Charlie Weis. I was anxious to learn more about his family, especially Hannah. I was also expecting to learn much more about his coaching in general. There was very little talk about working with Parcells and Bellicek (sp?). That could be a book unto itself.

In the book Weis admits to reluctantly being convinced to write this book, and I think it shows.

Great guy, great coach....average book. Just not enough substance.

Someday Charlie Weis will write a memoir that lays it out in full. Instead of brief, circumspect glimpses of Parcells and Belichek - important contacts for Weis in his current job - we'll get insight into the men and their organizations. Instead of bland coaching generalizations, we'll get real analysis.

But here and now, Weis plays it close to the vest. He's disinclined to talk about himself, except when discussing family life and his disabled daughter Hannah. The Weis coaching philosophy is guarded like a state secret.

His direct style makes No Excuses read like an extended magazine interview, engaging enough to hold a reader but short on depth, detail, and anecdote.